Movie Review: The Future Is Unwritten

And I have to say, it was just a little disappointing. Because I love the subject matter so much, I still enjoyed it, but the movie itself was actually not all that great. Here are my problems with it: First of all, not being familiar with Temple's style, I was surprised at how many clips from cartoons and movies were inserted throughout the film, often seemingly completely unrelated to what was going on in Strummer's life at that point, as far as I could tell. It was highly distracting and annoying. The cartoons correspond with Strummer's stint in art school, which as he declares, was the last resort for anyone who didn't want to join the working world, (I know bassist Paul Simonon went as well), and so those cartoons could have been Strummer's actual drawings, but we never find out.

The recurring clips of the animated film, Animal Farm, were especially strange, because it lent a heavy implication, which was never followed through on, that the punk scene or specifically The Clash themselves were like a dictatorship. The scenes are tied in with Strummer's famous reference to being "almost Stalinist" in their commitment to the group, but other than that, I couldn't really see the connection. It seemed a little forced.

On a side note, I found this review of The Filth And The Fury on the Internet Movie Database, so I assume this is a characteristic of Temple's movies and I should've seen it coming:

One problem with the movie was that live footage of the band would be playing and then the film would cut to scenes from a Shakespeare movie or other random scene, which completely detracted from the film. Every time one of those clips would cut in it would jar my attention from the story, and it definitely broke up the cohesiveness of the film.

We also never know who half the people talking are during The Future Is Unwritten. Temple is quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle as saying, "I didn't want all those captions and idiots in armchairs." So instead, I felt like an idiot, listening to people whose connection to Strummer was completely unclear. I kept thinking, "Why should I take your word for anything?" I got a few things from context, obviously, especially former girlfriends, but most of the time, I was kind of at a loss. (And the chronological order of the girlfriends and which was the mother of his kids was never clear.)

Having vented all that, I will say that it was awesome to see so much footage of one of my idols, and to find out all the things that made him human, even if they dispelled the super cool image of "Joe Strummer": the fact that he was a hippy before he was a punk who hated hippies (but hey, how many of them were), or the fact that he was a bit flaky and likely to steal your girlfriend, or that he stopped talking to his old friends once he joined The Clash. And then there was the long period of awkward soul-searching that went down after The Clash ended, (which frankly dragged a bit in the movie, but I'm sure it did in life too), when Strummer reverted back to the hippy mentality in many ways. He started a campfire movement, for people to organize get-togethers, to bond and talk, he made odd appearances in movies, and finally found his stride again in forming Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros. Basically he was a free spirit, with an intensity that made everything he did seem like the be-all, end-all, and an open-mindedness that couldn't be expected to stay bound within the confines of the punk scene. As a kid, his lyrics and attitude gave me encouragement to be all or nothing about life, and in my first band, where everyone was trying to be cool and hated me for pushing forward 24/7, I held onto that.

I enjoyed Westway to the World a lot more, but I still recommend The Future Is Unwritten, for the die-hards. I did walk out, after all, with a new favorite Strummer quote:

"I can still only play all six strings at once or none at all."

Me fucking too. Literally, and as a way of life.

Photo by fluzo via Flickr